


Balm of Hurt Minds

by Curuchamion



Series: Counted Word Fic [15]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-26
Updated: 2009-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curuchamion/pseuds/Curuchamion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why the Doctor doesn't sleep.</p><p>
  <a href="http://curuchamion.livejournal.com/27923.html">Originally posted on LiveJournal.</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=34995">Also posted on A Teaspoon and an Open Mind (WhoFic.net).</a>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Balm of Hurt Minds

He doesn't sleep.

“I'm a Time Lord,” he tells them. “I don't need to sleep.” It's true, for the most part: he _doesn't_ need sleep as humans do, in measured doses every night. He can get by with the occasional booster shot when his naturally resilient system begins to run down.

“I'm too busy,” he tells himself. “There's no time to sleep.” It's true, usually. There are always alien invasions, mad scientists, or the Brigadier's paperwork to battle. And behind it all, burning, his consuming need to mend the TARDIS and escape.

But in the long middle-nights when the experiments are all running smoothly - when there's nothing to do but wait, and sleep is calling his name - he still doesn't sleep. He can't accept the human rhythm of day and night, because that would be an assimilation into their culture.

An admission that, just maybe... he won't be leaving.


End file.
